Exodus

Exodus 5 verses 1 and 9 says:

And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’”…

9 Let the labor be heavier on the men, and let them work at it so that they will pay no attention to false words.”

Israel was in slavery in Egypt. But God had a plan.

God’s plan was to jailbreak Israel out from Pharaoh’s clutches and make them a free people, free to worship Him.

But Pharaoh was not going to have any part in that! He ordered the Israelites back to work, upping the ante in his brick making demands.

Pharaoh is a type of satan. We learn about the nature of our enemy by surveying the nature of Pharaoh.

Like Israel, God’s desire is to release us from bondage and slavery and make us free to serve and worship Him. That is His desire and plan for us.

What we see hear is that as the people of God gain hope, the enemy comes along just a quickly to snuff it out. Do you notice that? Have you ever experienced that?

Note how the enemy tries to do that:

1. Difficulties Escalate – when you are within arm’s reach of hope, the enemy will work over time to escalate the trying nature of your circumstances.

2. Increased Labour – the enemy will love to bump up the load your carrying to discourage from believing for breakthrough

3. Lying to you – Pharaoh calls God’s promises “lies”. The enemy would love you to doubt God. He slanders God by calling Him a liar. Ironically, satan is the “father of lies”.

Whenever you notice any of these occurrences follow a glimmer of hope, a breath of breakthrough or the sighting of the new day, tell yourself it is the enemy trying to spoil the good that God has planned!

Reject it, renounce it, call it out! And let the God of Hope flood your heart and life.

PRAYER: Father, I recognise you as the God of Hope. I choose to position myself before you to live in the freedom that Jesus bought for me. Thank you Lord, Amen.

Exodus 32:1b-4 says:

“Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”

The people of Israel, at this point in history, were eye witnesses of the mighty hand of God delivering them out of Egypt and its bondage to Pharaoh. Amazingly, they decided to create for themselves a golden statue who they then labelled as their “god”.

Instead of worshipping the one true God – who created us in His image – they created their own god, a god they created in their own image; a golden calf.

As we read this we are quick to recognise this as idolatry, and rightly so.

But we would be well served to dig a little deeper and ask some questions. Like, where did the Israelites get the gold from that they collected and used to make the golden calf? Interestingly, the gold earrings and jewellery came with them from Egypt.

Exodus 3:22 says:

But every woman shall ask of her neighbor and the woman who lives in her house, articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing; and you will put them on your sons and daughters. Thus you will (B)plunder the Egyptians.”

The gold was provided miraculously by God as the plunder from the land of their enemy.

Isn’t it amazing to see, that the gold that God had blessed his people with, that was provided by His favour upon them, could be so quickly turned into an idol.

It is sobering to realise, just as the blessings of God can turn into the idols of man in the Old Testament, the same is true of you and I today. The good things given to us by God to enjoy, to use, to steward well, can be corrupted for something which they were not created, idolatry.

Have the blessings of God in your life (whatever shape or form they may come in) caused you to be an idolater, displacing Jesus from the centre of your heart and life?

Or do the blessings of God cause you to love and worship God more, which overflows from a heart of gratitude?

PRAYER: Father, I thank you for the ways in which you have blessed me. I love you Father and don’t want anything to take the rightful place you have in my life as number one. Forgive me to allowing created things to take your place. I repent and run back to you. Amen.

Exodus 14 verses 13 and 14 says:

But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. 14 The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.”

Have you ever been a place where you are asking “Why am I not seeing breakthrough?”

I have. And as I ponder upon these verses, I think when we are asking “Why am I not seeing breakthrough?” what we are really asking is “Why don’t I see breakthrough NOW”

In the verses above, Moses declares to the nation of Israel “your deliverance is coming! And it’s coming TODAY!!”

No longer would the nation of Israel long for the coming deliverance of the Lord. No longer would they hope that breakthrough would come. In this moment Moses tells them, TODAY is the day for your breakthrough!

What an awesome moment that is, when we see the manifestation of our praying, our seeking, our sowing and our faithful endurance. What a blessing when TODAY arrives and brings the breakthrough.

But here’s the thought.

You only get to the TODAY of your breakthrough if you first don’t quit, enduring, seeking and praying to the Lord of the breakthrough.

If you are at the point of saying “why am I not seeing my breakthrough NOW?” you have two choices:

1. If you run or disconnect or react in fear, you will not see your deliverance
2. But if you “fear not” and stand firm on what God has said, if you commit to endure, THEN you will no longer see your oppressor, you will SEE the deliverance of the Lord!

This is a great promise. Don’t complain. Be still before God and stand on His Word. And your day of deliverance will come.

PRAYER: Father, thank you for your promise. Thank you for your Word to me. Thank you for your deliverance and breakthrough. I receive it by faith today. Thank you Father, in Jesus name, Amen.